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Why Having More Christians Won't Necessarily Change Our Culture
Charisma News ^ | 5/27/2013 | Os Hillman

Posted on 05/28/2013 6:58:35 AM PDT by xzins

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To: stuartcr

There is a reason that you are known as a troll, you just burn up real estate and waste people’s time.

You don’t say anything, and you will chew up an entire thread doing it.


101 posted on 05/28/2013 11:05:58 AM PDT by ansel12 (Social liberalism/libertarianism, empowers, creates and imports, and breeds, economic liberals.)
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To: nitzy

Why are culture won’t necessarily change Christians?


102 posted on 05/28/2013 11:06:36 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va

English please?


103 posted on 05/28/2013 11:16:17 AM PDT by nitzy (You can avoid reality but you can't avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.)
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To: Persevero

I don’t even see any gates


104 posted on 05/28/2013 11:21:15 AM PDT by stuartcr ("I have habits that are older than the people telling me they're bad for me.")
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To: Outership
This article’s purpose is to tell the saints to stop spreading the Good News. To get them to stop all that worthless witnessing and spreading of the Gospel and to instead focus on becoming a TV station owner. What part of the Bible is that teaching from?

I didn't read the author saying that. I heard him say that having a majority culture is a good thing, but that without targeting leadership within that culture, you still have ungodly leadership.

There is logic to it. The only reason I mentioned TV networks is because they have such a profound impact on both culture and on political campaigns.

105 posted on 05/28/2013 11:22:03 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! True supporters of our troops pray for their victory!)
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To: xzins
Interesting post and I'm going to thoroughly read it, but I strongly question the initial premise:

For centuries, Christians thought culture would change if we just had a majority of Christians in the culture.

When have Christians ever been in the majority anywhere? On what basis would Christians ever believe that they might ever be in the majority prior to Christ's return?

106 posted on 05/28/2013 11:36:53 AM PDT by Theophilus (Not merely prolife, but prolific)
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To: Frumanchu; Alex Murphy
IMHO, I do believe the progressive rise of certain schools of eschatology

Yet the rise of the Moral Majority and of Falwell and of evangelicalism, which made huge political inroads, was largely made up of premillennialists.

My sense is that knowledgeable premillennialists, even dispensationalists, realize that much of their own forecast has not yet come to pass and could be centuries away. In the meantime, "salt and light".

107 posted on 05/28/2013 11:52:13 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! True supporters of our troops pray for their victory!)
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To: xzins
Good article.

BTW, this is why all that talk about "moderate muslims" is a bunch of hooey.

108 posted on 05/28/2013 12:01:35 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: xzins
Christians are not storming the gates. They’re out hiding in their homes and preparing for a backyard barbeque. And, oddly, there is no leader(s) leading the conflict with the culture.

Since Billy Graham has become superannuated and Jerry Falwell has died, there is no Protestant/Evangelical figure who can serve as a figurehead; in no small part because of the vicious fight the left has put up against anyone new in the pipeline since those men came of age.

This is why societies with kings and popes historically have outlasted equality-based democracies; and even why great American family businesses and foundations veer off their righteous ideals or founding purposes straight into socialist politics once the founding family dies off. We are now seeing the sleepwalking culture of low information that seeks tyranny all by itself.

109 posted on 05/28/2013 12:30:04 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: SaraJohnson

You have neatly summed up that once again in history, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (—John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, English historian, 1887; who also said, “There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.”)


110 posted on 05/28/2013 12:41:07 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: nitzy; xzins
I am getting kind of sick and tired of the Catholic bigotry take over of FR. I don't mind that 1/3 of the posts have explicit or implicit Catholic overtones but when this kind of junk is thrown in it starts to get to me

I don't think the post meant that. Remember, the Eastern Orthodox church is out there, and is not Catholic. But more to the point, even as late as the 1960s, the Anglican and Methodist Episcopal churches, to name two I am familiar with, were holding to the "apostolic faith" mentioned at every service in the Apostle's Creed. Then the Youth Rebellion, The Pill, and The Sexual Revolution started to take over U.S. Protestantism and its seminaries.

111 posted on 05/28/2013 12:51:18 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: nitzy
I see many opportunities for Catholics and Christians to work together.

I totally agree, having grown up in a half-Protestant, half-Catholic family in a neighborhood that was half-Jewish. Learning where I stand personally, but tied by love and respect to these other traditions, has been a huge part of being an American for me. I very much want all those three streams to unite in the face of our common enemy (Ignorance, Satan, Islam -- whatever you want to call it.)

112 posted on 05/28/2013 1:02:26 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: ansel12
your silly posts, it is like having a kid in the back seat.

Ow! Awesome smackdown!

113 posted on 05/28/2013 1:04:19 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: ansel12; nitzy
What a strange thing to post, those elections are over, why not post the vote results? I guess you know how the Catholic denomination votes, and maybe the Southern Baptists?

The chart says how the various groups voted, which is the point -- not the end result, but who made it so. Did you read the numbers?

114 posted on 05/28/2013 1:10:39 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: tet68; xzins
While having more christians won’t necessarily change our culture, you can be assured by simple observation that having more muslims WILL.

Bingo! Time for the petty disputes between Christians, and even between Christians and Jews, to stop. Go with what unites us and be content in your own faith/denomination for the rest. But KNOW your faith and the large themes that divide it unmistakably from Islam.

115 posted on 05/28/2013 1:16:17 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: Theophilus

America was Christian, I think that during our now distant past, that the majority of Americans would not have taken it casually if you told them that they did not believe in Christ.


116 posted on 05/28/2013 1:28:49 PM PDT by ansel12 (Social liberalism/libertarianism, empowers, creates and imports, and breeds, economic liberals.)
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To: Outership
Those who follow Jesus don’t have cable or go to the cinema. If they feel the need to watch a program they rent a Godly one...

While I agree with the intent of your long post, it is possible to resist many of the world's temptations and also utilize media not just for relaxation, but also to understand the culture towards which we need to be missionaries.

I saw The Passion of Christ (both versions) in the cinema; as well as The Nativity Story, Amazing Grace, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Prince of Egypt, and One Night with the King (story of Esther), all in first-run movie theaters. I've also rented DVDs of Luther, Saint Francis of Assisi, and a number of other Bible-themed films. On television, I watched The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Ten Commandments, Fireproof, and the recent, excellent cable series The Bible.

Also on cable, although it is a vast wasteland, are shows of Christian people who are "in the world, but not of the world", such as Dog the Bounty Hunter and Duck Dynasty, two family groups that pray together and work together on reality tv, as well as news commentators Laura Ingraham, Anne Coulter and Glenn Beck, who frequently mention their various Christian points of view. There are several all-religion Protestant cable channels and an excellent Catholic cable channel which has much to offer all Christians, EWTN. Even broadcast tv offers shows that feature Christian or Catholic characters, such as The Mentalist, in which one major crime-fighting character always wears a cross, and several characters frequently try to convince the agnostic protagonist that there is an afterlife.

117 posted on 05/28/2013 1:43:24 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: Theophilus
When have Christians ever been in the majority anywhere?

The American colonies, 1607-1776; and the United States of America, 1776-2008.

118 posted on 05/28/2013 1:53:13 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world." -- Francis)
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To: Albion Wilde
I am from a half Catholic, half Protestant household as well. Despite that challenging start, I have somehow managed to find a real, personal relationship with the Lord in a Bible based, Evangelical church home.

The part where he says...

The privatized DIY American model is hopelessly inadequate and defective.

...he is just being nasty. Like some of my Catholic friends, he thinks that the cause of all the problems in the world is the Protestant reformation which itself was inspired by Satan. He lumps all non-Catholic Christians together as "Protestants" and gives us the code name "the privatized DIY American model". I bet Romulus would say that Obama and I are the same religion because neither of us are Catholics yet we both claim to be Christians.

I am pretty well versed in Catholic bigotry toward Christians. I have seen quite a bit.

The changes you mention in the Protestant church denominations are why I attend an Evangelical church. We are not part of any top down hierarchy. We are however affiliated with several other Evangelical churches which teach a similar Bible based message. If my church were to change and start preaching an extra-biblical message (such as the elevation and worship of mortal men), I would simply leave and find another church which teaches the word of God.

119 posted on 05/28/2013 2:06:18 PM PDT by nitzy (You can avoid reality but you can't avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.)
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To: xzins

This same principle also explains why homosexuals have so much power and influence in the United States.


120 posted on 05/28/2013 2:14:33 PM PDT by kaehurowing
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